What happened the sixth time I went to the principal’s office

by Joshua Rogers on September 8, 2018

When I was in third grade, I had problems behaving. My heart was in the right place, but my good intentions didn’t make it to the surface a lot of the time. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t seem to follow the rules.

I had a number of infractions on my record, none of which I told my parents about.

There was the time on the bus I pulled a girl’s hair to get her attention (it worked).

I also wrote an insulting poem about a chubby kid “whose name was Matt, and he looked really, really fat.”

Then there was the time I called my classmate a “jackass” and the time I called my ex-girlfriend a — well, it’s not really appropriate to repeat here.

When I got called to Mr. Radcliff’s office for the sixth time, I had no idea what I had done and I felt dejected as I walked down the hallway. I came into his office, sat down and looked at the floor. Then he said the last thing I expected to hear:

“Josh, I’ve heard you’ve been behaving really well lately. I want you to know how proud I am of you, and I just called you to my office so I could give you a peppermint.”

I was stunned.

“Really?”

“Yep, now you can take that peppermint and go back to class.”

I took the peppermint with me and carried it down the hallway like it was a gold coin.

Then I went to class and bragged to my classmates about my turnaround. My third-grade year of misbehaving was redeemed, thanks to Mr. Ratcliff. What a relief. I wasn’t so bad after all.

I look back at that conversation and a lot of questions come to mind that I haven’t even thought about until recently: Who told Mr. Ratcliff to do that? Was my teacher involved in it? Did he do it on his own? What did I do to get his attention?

I have no idea.

I do know this: There’s a troublemaking kid at your local school. Perhaps he or she is your student — maybe the kid is your child. Unfortunately, that child thinks they’re bad, instead of realizing that they’re just a kid who has a problem with bad behavior. Help that kid out.

Go buy a cheap bag of peppermints and take the time to notice that child when they get something — anything — right. Then take them aside, tell them you need to talk to them, and do what Mr. Radcliff did: Give them some hope by giving them some love. They might just remember you for the rest of their life.

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